


The time will come

by hirondelle



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Assassination, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Civil War, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Manipulation, Politics, Sibling Love, War, manga spoilers (Kou's Arc)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27246859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hirondelle/pseuds/hirondelle
Summary: As Kougyoku was following Hakuei and Hakuryuu out of the room, she thought that something wasn’t exactly right. And Kouen’s bored voice made that possibility very real.“Wait, Gyoku,”.........Kouen and Kougyoku have an interesting conversation about fate.
Relationships: Ren Kouen & Ren Kougyoku, Ren Kougyoku & Sinbad
Kudos: 11





	The time will come

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction takes place right after ch. 146
> 
> I apologize for the grammar mistakes! I'm still learning about the correct using of verbs :""

As Kougyoku was following Hakuei and Hakuryuu out of the room, she thought that something wasn’t exactly right. And Kouen’s bored voice made that possibility very real.

“Wait, Gyoku,”

“Yes?” The girl startled, her hands still bundled into the sleeves. She straightened her back as she turned towards Kouen, a nervous smile on her lips. She could tell that Hakuei and Hakuren were gone already, leaving them alone.

Kouen didn’t raise his eyes from the scroll he had been reading until then, “You hadn’t told me anything about your stay in Sindria. How was the weather?”

Kougyoku sank his face under the soft garments of his vest. She didn’t want his brother to see her blush like a kid. Obviously, she did know that Kouen couldn’t give a damn about Sindria’s meteorological conditions, but she was glad she was being given the occasion to talk with him. “Actually, uhm, about Sindria…”, she began to say, “A lot of things happened, and I was… I was wondering if…”

Kouen looked at her with that poker face of his and she couldn’t go on, too shy to say anything, and knowing very well that if she hadn’t found the right words to say it, his brother could have guessed what was really happening.

“Gyoku,” Kouen said politely. “Tell me: are you aware of what you are, exactly?”

The girl lowered her gaze to her feet, unsure. “I’m… a princess of Kou’s Empire,” she tried to say, and it sounded more as a question than a statement.

Kouen nodded slowly. “Excellent,” he praised. Kougyoku wasn’t too used to being praised, but she could tell that wasn’t the case. Actually, she was feeling more stupid than the usual. That was upsetting, in a way.

“Do you have some dignity left, Princess Kougyoku?”

Ok, now she was feeling offended. “I do!” she pouted, regaining her composure right after. Kouen was his brother, sure, but first of all he was going to be the future emperor. She quieted down and listened, because she was a polite princess after all, and she wanted Kouen to acknowledge at least that.

He sighed. He probably was tired and the conversation between him and Hakuren had been tense, she could tell. So she didn’t mind if he was being a bit rude towards her.

Everyone was.

“I know that it could sound hash to you, since you don’t know about of lot of things,” Kouen explained, “but you have to understand that a war with Sindria could be required”.

She tried to pretend that those words weren’t affecting her the way they were. “I trust your judgement, my king, but… I can’t help but wonder if those killings will be necessary after all” she mumbled, looking down to her feet. “I made a lot of friends in Sindria. I would be very sad if something happened to them”.

Kouen fell silent for a while. He got up and straightened his back, his red, soft tunic hanging low on his broad shoulders. He made some steps towards the window, then he retreaded.

“Wars don’t necessary bring to many killings,” he pointed out. “I understand the sentiment, though. And it’s just normal that you feel that way, after all. I allowed you to have a stay in Sindria for you to experience more about the world we live in. And I’m glad you made friends in the process,” he said then, almost cautiously. “I was just wondering if there was something troubling you… something that could change the fate of this country, to be precise”.

Kougyoku looked at him with a bemused expression on her face. She couldn’t understand what his brother was saying to her. Did she do something wrong? Something that could put their Empire at risk? She couldn’t recall a single thing. Except for something: her feelings for Sinbad. But as long as she would have kept them for herself, everything would have been fine, right? It was not a big deal. Sure, she had come in with the precise intention to ask Kouen to spare Sinbad’s life. And secretly, in the back of her mind, she just wished to be promised in marriage to him, like it had happened in Balbadd: what was the difference, after all? As the fourth daughter of the former emperor, her only use was to help her country establishing strong and long-lasting alliances, that was her fate. How could something like that collide with the prestigious one of Kou Empire?

She couldn’t have expressed all those things in a single sentence, so she just asked, her voice trembling: “Have I been… bad?”

As soon as those words escaped from her lips, she felt Kouen’s gaze towards her, piercing through her mind in a questioning silence. “No, Gyoku, you haven’t” he eventually answered, his voice softer, “I’m just worried”.

 _About what?,_ she wanted to ask. Instead, she said: “I wouldn’t ever want to be a bother to you, your majesty”. She bowed elegantly, as she had been taught. She was beginning to feel nervous and that was something that she hated, because that was a very vulnerable side of her. Kouen was her _brother_. But before that, he was her _king_. Such a remissive attitude in the court could either save her life or be her weakness, and now she couldn’t read the situation very well, so she couldn’t understand if that was the first case or the latter. She just felt exposed, as if Kouen could read her mind. But that was one of Kouen’s effects on her, after all: in their rare encounters, there had always been something about him that intimidated her.

Kouen furrowed his brows in concern. “You said it yourself, Gyoku. You are a princess of Kou’s Empire. Something like that is out of the question,” he reprimed her, almost severe.

Kougyoku nodded quietly. “I’ll very aware of my duties as a member of the royal family, and I’ll happily observe them,” she murmured, and bowed again. She didn’t know what to do: was his brother really doubting her loyalty to the Empire? That was humiliating to say the least. She was sure that the moment she would have stepped out of that room she would have cried. But for the moment, she had to endure it and kept his gaze low on her feet. She just had to wait for Kouen to dismiss her.

A strange silence followed. Kougyoku started to tremble, as she couldn’t control the stress of the situation. That was bad: that was really bad. If the future Emperor couldn’t trust her, who would? Which remote land of the Kou Empire she was going to be sent to?

“Sit down, Gyoku,” his brother said, almost fatherly this time. “You look very pale. I think you misunderstood something”.

He reached his chair and pushed it towards her. She sat down quietly. Kouen only used stools for some reasons and they were uncomfortable, really, but she obeyed anyway, because she was feeling sick at that point.

“I think I never approved our father’s policies,” Kouen pointed out. “So much responsibilities on those shoulders of yours”. Kougyoku shyly nodded up at him, waiting for him to go on. His brother was giving her a strange look: secure, gentle, tender in a way. “Tell me, Gyoku. Is there something you are concerned about?”

Kyogyoku nodded again. “I… I fear the day I’ll disappoint you,” she said earnestly.

Kouen sat down in front of her. He was just ten years older than her, and in some occasions she felt like there were more of them. They rarely talked like that, always busy with their own concerns, but when he stopped being the king for a moment… she liked that. It was like there wasn’t really anything between them. They could float in the same space. They were a bit more _equal_. Kougyoku felt more relaxed, already, because she really missed one of those moments.

“I genuinely doubt that something like this could happen anytime,” he reassured her, his eyes gently half-closed for tiredness and coziness. “But there is something that you have to know”.

“What is it?” she asked, placing a hand on one of his. They were enormous and scarred all over.

Kouen gazed at her, dead serious. “You can’t marry King Sinbad”.

Kougyoku felt her face catching fire. She laughed briefly, until she caught Kouen’s grave eyes, then she quieted down. “I mean… it’s not like I was looking forward to it,” she lied. “But… why sending me to his court, if that’s not the case?”

Kouen sighed deeply and patted her shoulder. “Gyoku, you have to understand… That’s not your fate”.

 _That_ was a surprise.

She blinked one or two times, in perplexity. _How could it be?_ She was raised _exactly_ for marriage. The fourth girl, from an ominous affair. The only thing that had saved her from falling into misery had been her father’s blood. The _least_ she could have done was being at his service, and at the Empire’s service, as her sister had done before her. _That_ had always been her fate, for all she knew.

Kouen was looking fondly at her, as if he could scrutinize her thoughts. “You are a dungeon conqueror, now,” he simply said.

Kougyoku stammered. That was unexpected from his brother: she could have never told that he thought about her in that terms. “You… you want me to _fight_?” she asked, confused as she was. “With you?”

That time, his brother smiled. It was the first time since that night. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it, too”.

 _Vinea_. As that name came to her mind, she trembled in excitement. How could she deny the sense of absolute power and control that she had felt the time she confronted Sinbad with her djinn equip? She had never felt like this before. Could it be that was the exact reason why Kouen allowed her to go there, after all? To feel like the _true queen_ she was whenever she slide out that hairpin from her hair? Kougyoku couldn’t tell if it scared her, or excited her the most. She just knew that the sense of liberation that she had felt that time wasn’t comparable to anything in her life. She smiled at Kouen, her eyes shining with a strange and new light. Obviously, considering the fact that he was in possession of _three_ metal vessels, he knew better than her that sentiment.

Kouen kept his enigmatic smile on. “Why would I have wanted you in Sindria, you ask”, he said, “I just wanted you to see… the face of our enemy”.

The image of Sinbad came to her mind, his cat eyes piercing through her soul. _Their enemy_. Her heartbeat sped up and her enthusiasm wavered. “But I don’t want to fight Sindria,” she tried to say. _I don’t want a war_ , she kept that for herself _, I don’t want a war, I don’t want anyone to die, I don’t want Sinbad to die_.

Kouen got up and towered over her, and she knew that the king had returned, even if he kept that gentle tone of voice that made her feel safe. “I’m not asking you to do it right now”.

 _But the time will come_.

Kougyoku lowered his head again, this time reflecting on Kouen’s unspoken words. She realized that until then she had always thought illogically, always wishing for an “if” that never existed. It was obvious that the war was very real in the mind of her king: it had been naïve of her thinking that she could have changed that. But the thought didn’t upset her. Instead, she started considering her position in that great scheme of things: what role would have had in a war with Sindria? For the first time, her prospective had been totally changed: she didn’t have to marry _anyone_ , this time. She had always taken it for granted, not even thinking for a moment how that responsibility made her really feel. And now Kouen was showing her a new path that she had never considered once in her life. He was showing her that a different fate was _possible_.

She smiled up at Kouen, quietly, and she encountered his pensive gaze.

“Of course I’ll be by your side, _brother_ ”.

Of course she wanted to fight.

Kouen’s expression became softer at that word. “My sweet Gyoku,” he commented.

They exchanged a silent smile.

֍

Kougyoku didn’t realize what was happening until she heard the crowd screaming in excitement and delight.

Then she knew it had happened.

Kougyoku sat strong and silent on her chair. To think that those sounds could reach even that part of the palace, where she had been reclused. They had done it to not show her anything. They wanted her to _behave_.

And she couldn’t.

She barely felt his brother’s handmaids embracing her and lulling her with praises and comforting words. But she could tell they were crying too. They were the only ones that could hear her pitiful sounds in that huge chamber. She was just glad they were muffled with theirs. Just incoherent sounds, little hiccups between the curses, she didn’t even know what she was really saying at that point.

She just heard the other women pleading her to stop. Hushing her gently as they were caressing her face, her hair, her tears. “Princess Kougyoku,” one of Kouha’s maids whispered in her ear, “Princess Kougyoku, don’t”.

She cried, so loud that the whole city could have heard.

She couldn’t understand that strange feeling that was rising from her guts and made her scream like that. She just knew that it was scary, and exciting, and _comforting_ , in a way. All alone in that world, she had been clinging to it with an unexpected hunger. She didn’t know any better at that point, she didn’t have any other choice… It didn’t matter what Aladdin said to her, there was no way her _fate_ could have changed for good. There was no fate without Vinea. Without her brothers. Without Kouen. Without herself.

That was the moment she decided that Sinbad had to die.


End file.
